Daily Diary

To Russia with love

Posted 19/07/2007 by The Daily Diary

Doing business in Russia is far from easy, judging by the regular reports The Diary hears of hapless associates being carjacked by marauding Cossacks (well, Muscovite gangsters).

But safety concerns haven’t stopped Anglo-Saxon invaders going where Napoleon couldn’t and marching into the heart of Russia, looking to claim a slice of the Moscow cash-cow. Neither have countless IT hiccups halted their progress.

Tech-savvy City pace-setter Lovells recently opted to ship a firewall to its Moscow office (apparently it’s an actual object, not just an amazingly boring concept given a dramatic name by wishful IT double-thinkers). The firm apparently thought it would be faster to send out the complete package from the UK rather than source the thing out there.

Big mistake. Moscow customs officers were so intriuged by what they found after unwrapping the hefty parcel that they took three months to fully unbundle it. When they finally bored of their new toy, officials sent it on to Lovells’ Moscow office in literally hundreds of tiny pieces.

The moral of the story? Buy local, surely.